4.5⭐️ Leo Balanoff is a pathological liar and a justice-seeking attorney caught in the middle of a crime syndicate. As the FBI's only real shot at bringing down this treacherous group, Leo must decide if he would rather risk his life to help them or go to prison for murder. Soon Leo's new role brings him back into the orbit of his ex, former cop Andi Piotrowski, who might just know more than she is letting on.

David Ellis’s ability to write morally grey characters you cannot help but *vehemently* root for, and twists like no one else, means I will forever and always devour anything he writes. This book starts off with a bang, but soon, we are lead through a story, set in both the past and present, that will have us questioning everyone. While this was perhaps a bit more of a slow burn than his previous book, Look Closer, I enjoyed it nonetheless. Leo is one of the most interesting characters I have read of late. His complex family dynamics and background, as well as the dichotomy of his desire to do good in the world and but as a pathological liar, kept me turning the pages. And the subplot of his relationship with Andi was chef's kiss.

If you have not yet read a David Ellis novel, now is the time.

Read if you like:
•cat and mouse plot lines
•psychological thrillers
•police procedurals
•morally grey characters
•ensemble casts
•twisty thrillers

Thank you Putnam Books for the gifted copies.

If these words instantly hook you- crime, drug dealers, espionage, spying, undercover agents, cops, lawyers- then you need to read The Best Lies by David Ellis. This is a serious crime fiction story, very different from Look Closer, David’s previous book which I loved.

A solid read that would make an excellent film.

Leo Balanoff is a diagnosed pathological liar with unthinkable skeletons in his family’s closet. He’s also a crusading attorney who seeks justice at all costs. When a ruthless drug dealer is found dead and Leo’s fingerprints show up on the murder weapon, no one believes a word he says. But he might be the FBI’s only shot at taking down the dealer’s brutal syndicate.

Risk his life going undercover for the feds or head straight to prison for murder? Leo accepts the FBI’s offer — but it comes with a price, including a collision course with his ex, Andi Piotrowski, a former cop and “the one who got away.” Forced to walk a tightrope between an ambitious FBI agent and a cruel, calculating crime boss, Leo’s trapped in a corner. But he has more secrets than anyone realizes, and a few more cards left to play …

Thank you to David Ellis, Netgalley, and publishers for this ARC! This was bout 3.5-4 for me. Look Closer was my favorite thriller a couple years ago so I really wanted to read this one! I will be honest though, I was a little hesitant at first with how long this one was, and the fact I don't usually read cop/crime type thrillers. BUT, I did end up liking it! I also loved how short a lot of the chapters were, I think one chapter was only just a page long. There are multiple POV's. I also plan to listen to the audiobook when it comes out, too! If you're into cop/crime/mob genre or sub-genre thrillers this will be for you!

Thank you so much to Putnam for the ARC!

This book was a total blast that I never wanted to put down and finished in less than 24 hours!

I'm usually not super into crime/FBI thrillers, but this was just what I needed to get me out of a reading slump!

This book alternates between present/past timelines and is told from multiple perspectives. The different perspectives were very unique so it was easy to distinguish between all the characters. I was most intrigued by the main character, Leo's past chapters. Learning about his childhood, college days, and what made him into the person he is today was my favorite part.

I was STRESSED out because I needed to know how things would end and I think he tied things up perfectly!

My recommendation is to go in as blind as you can and enjoy the ride!

This will be available on July 23rd!

Thank you to NetGalley and the publishers for the advanced copy.
I have been a general fan of David Ellis’ books, however this one wasn’t a huge hit for me.
After a drug dealer is found dead with Leo’s fingerprints and DNA at the crime scene, Leo Balanoff has to decide if he will go undercover to help take down a crime syndicate. I don’t mind sting operations and typically love anything FBI, CIA, crime lords, etc, but I just didn’t find myself invested in this storyline or the characters. There were a lot of timelines that confused me.

This book is getting a ton of buzz. This one seems thrilling and layered, and smartly executed.

From GR:
Leo Balanoff is a diagnosed pathological liar with unthinkable skeletons in his family's closet. He's also a crusading attorney who seeks justice at all costs. When a ruthless drug dealer is found dead and Leo’s fingerprints show up on the murder weapon, no one believes a word he says. But he might be the FBI’s only shot at taking down the dealer’s brutal syndicate.

Risk his life going undercover for the feds or head straight to prison for murder? Leo accepts the FBI’s offer—but it comes with a price, including a collision course with his ex, Andi Piotrowski, a former cop and “the one who got away.” Forced to walk a tightrope between an ambitious FBI agent and a cruel, calculating crime boss, Leo’s trapped in a corner. But he has more secrets than anyone realizes, and a few more cards left to play .

I appreciate NetGalley and the publisher for giving me an ARC of this book. My review rating is based on the summary of this book.

Also posted to goodreads. Thanks netgalley for the arc! Look closer was a 5 star read for me last year so I was excited to receive this arc. This book doesn’t disappoint! Giving 4 stars since it can get to be a bit tough to follow at times. There are so many characters intertwined in different ways and it can be difficult to keep up with. I’m glad I read on kindle so I could go back and refresh who was who. Reading on audio would have been tough for this book. I still highly recommend since it’s a different type of thriller/mystery and kept me guessing

One of my favorite books last year was Look Closer by David Ellis and I recommend it all of the time. It doesn’t seem to get the hype it deserves. I was very happy to have the chance to read The Best Lies early and it did not disappoint.

It is a fast paced thriller and very entertaining. The main character, Leo Balanoff, is quite clever as he is a recently reinstated attorney implicated in a murder. Known to be a pathological liar, he is caught in an intricate web between a drug dealer, a crime boss and the FBI. There are multiple POVs and flashbacks with several characters who have motive besides him. Twisty and very unpredictable binge read as the story unfolds and holds your interest to the very end. The plot twist and shocking conclusion will have David Ellis in the top of your favorite authors list. 


Thank you to the author @DavidEllis as well as to @PenguinGroupPutnum, GPPutnamsSons and @NetGalley for a free e-ARC. The opinions are mine alone and not biased in any way.

I've taken some time to collect my thoughts and WOW- talk about a rollercoaster! This thriller truly had such an intricate plot with extremely well written characters. Each character was instrumental in weaving this messy web and the alternating timelines were written seamlessly,
The main character, Leo, an attorney; finds himself on the other side of the law as he is accused of murdering an infamous drug dealer. This twisty thriller snakes readers through his dealings with his difficult childhood, past relationship and current involvement with the FBI and local law enforcement. Who is really responsible? Is Leo guilty of this crime since his fingerprints were found at the crime scene?
Do yourself a favor and read this.. it is intense, fast-paced and is another hit from author David Ellis!

Thanks so much to Netgalley, the author and G.P Putnam's Sons for this digital ARC in exchange for my honest feedback!

After the authors last book, I was so excited to check this one out!

I can happily say that this was just as good, if not better than his last thriller. I do not want to talk too much about the plot, because I truly feel that it is good to go into this with limited knowledge of the story. Just know, that it is a wild ride!

Thank you to Netgalley & the publisher for this arc copy.

The Best Lies starts off with Leo’s imminent arrest and unfolds from there. With dual time lines we follow Leo, his brother Trace and his ex girlfriend Andi. Leo is being arrested for the murder of a notorious con. We follow him as he’s set up between the mobster and the FBI with new twists and turns as the story unfolds.

This was really run and a well laid out story. Each new chapter revealed new twists I didn’t see coming and I really enjoyed it!

Thank you to NetGalley and the publishers for the advanced copy. After reading Look Closer last year and really enjoying it, I was excited to read The Best Lies. Leo is an attorney who seeks justice no matter the consequences. After a drug dealer is found dead with Leo’s fingerprints and DNA at the crime scene, Leo must go undercover to help take down a crime lord. Along the way, Leo encounters Andi, his ex, Nico, a crime boss, and Chris, an FBI agent. I personally don’t enjoy sting operation storylines. I liked the short chapters in The Best Lies. I was able to predict some of the twists, but others did end surprising me.

I couldn't get into this, which is a big bummer because I loved his other book Look Closer. This was too business-y and and took way too much concentration for me to enjoy. Too many points of view and timelines had me really confused throughout. First half of the book was a lot of setting up the plot, and just lost interest for me.

I wasn't sure about this at first, but it ended up being really fun!
*
It starts off with Leo, a lawyer, getting arrested for killing a local drug dealer and trafficker, but very quickly becomes clear that there is SO MUCH else going on. Seriously, you get your first twist and then it's off to the races, absolutely nothing is what it seems. And once you think you know what's happening, you absolutely don't.
*
This was a really good popcorn thriller. I ended up at 3.5 stars (rounded up on GR/Amazon) because the writing is nothing amazing, it maybe tries a bit too hard to make the characters flawed and complex, and I had a tough time getting excited about a corruption thriller, but the way it all came together was really very impressive.
*
I would recommend this as a fun summer thriller!

Prime number-obsessed Leo is a crafty, pathological liar and a recently reinstated disbarred attorney with all kinds of skeletons in his closet. But he’s also the FBI’s best chance to take down a murderous, human-trafficking crime lord.

The Best Lies has multiple POVs and flashbacks to several different time periods as well as a lot of characters with their own motives. This one requires close attention. Nothing is what it seems! You’ll be rewarded with an entertaining, very twisty story with complex characters.

I enjoyed seeing how all of these seemingly unrelated pieces of the puzzle fit together and the very satisfying ending.

The Best Lies is an unpredictable thriller you won’t want to miss!

I absolutely loved Look Closer, but I have really struggled getting into this story. The story is told through the point of view of three different characters. Then it hops back in time, and sadly I just wasn’t excited to read this one.

Thank you for giving me the opportunity to read this story, with my honest feedback!

”There are so many moving parts, so many players, so much I don’t know. It’s gonna be a wild ride."

Leo Balanoff
Night Before the Drop

Well, that’s putting it mildly! And those skeletons in Leo’s family closet? Oh, they’re some crazy $#!^!!! And it all comes out in one crazy, wild ride. The book summary is basically an introduction to the primary storyline. What the book summary doesn’t say is that the “drug dealer”, Cyrus, that Leo is arrested for killing, was also a human trafficker and murderer. Scum of earth in pretty much everyone’s book. Cyrus killed one of Leo’s clients, Bonnie, and now Cyrus is hunting down one of Leo’s other clients, Trace, who is Bonnie’s son as well as Cyrus’s biological son. Cyrus kidnapped Trace from Bonnie (one of the prostitutes he ran) when Trace was five and sold him to a woman named Marilyn. A few months earlier, Cyrus kidnapped Leo from his mother (another one of Cyrus’s prostitutes), when he was six, and also sold him to Marilyn, so Leo and Trace grew up adopted brothers. Marilyn was a grieving widow, as well as a cop, who accidentally killed her own two sons (5&6) while in a drunken stupor. She bought Leo and Trace on the black market to replace her own sons. She even died Leo’s hair and forced him to become left-handed in order to mimic her own son. Yeah, mama Marilyn was a wacko with a lot of secrets and unresolved issues. None of this is a spoiler since it happened in the first 20% of the story.

There are secondary storylines like the one of Leo meeting Andi in college 14yrs ago and were a couple for many years until she dumped him because of his crazy stunts. It bears mentioning that Andi has some of her own cobwebs in her family closet too. While Leo is still in love with Andi, the feelings aren’t exactly mutual. Andi used to be a cop but now does private security for a large pharmaceutical company. There’s another one of an FBI agent, Chris, who is back at work after beating cancer and is trying to prove himself as being just as good as ever (even though he’s really not) and trying to get back on his old task force and capturing the infamous criminal, Nico (who Cyrus worked for), will put him back in the FBI’s good graces.

The story flips back and forth between Leo, Andi and Chris as well as between seven different time frames. The story starts in present day and then flips back to a year ago, then back to the present day, then 30yrs ago, then back to present day, then 14yrs ago, then back to the present day, yada, yada, yada. This goes on throughout the whole book so that the reader never really has the big picture or the background info on the characters or what is truly going on until the very end. This is one way of building interest and engaging the reader. While I don’t mind a couple of MCs or two or three timeframes, the constant flipping back and forth can get a little irksome because it can rattle the flow of the story if not done right. Fortunately, Ellis manages most of the transitions smoothly enough with a minimum of bumpy transitions.

Most of the story revolves around “the drop” that Cyrus/Nico want Leo to do and how Leo got arrested for killing Cyrus (how the story started). There are so many moving parts in this story along with all the different machinations of the cast of characters for a reader to stay on top of (at least for me there was). It’s well into the second half that the storylines begin to merge together and a clearer picture is developing of just how elaborate and maybe just a little convoluted this story has become. The ending was a massive collision (no other way it could have ended) of all the characters and their individual end games.

The character development for the MCs was well done, which are the most important characters. Although, I would have liked to have known a little more about Trace and Brando (Andi’s “dad” for most of the story). The pacing was steady to fast and the storyline very interesting. It was a late-night night to finish the book because I could not go to sleep until I knew how this story ended. This is the sixth book I have read by David Ellis, with almost all of them being 4-5star ratings. Suffice it to say, I like Ellis; he’s a good writer and storyteller. I’m looking at an overall rating of 4.1 that I will be rounding down to a 4star rating. I want to thank NetGalley and Penguin Group Putnam for sending me this eARC in exchange for my honest review.

#NetGalley #PenguinGroupPutnam #TheBestLies

Ellis is back with another mystery thriller and I’m happy to report that it did not disappoint! It doesn’t hold a candle to Look Closer, for me, but it was still a totally engrossing read that I didn’t want to put down. The very definition of a perfect summer thriller. I loved all the twists, the smart writing, the different character POVs, and how everything comes together. Highly recommend to anyone looking for a bingey read with an easy writing style, short chapters, and twists that keep you guessing to the very end.

I loved Look Closer by David Ellis, recommended it to so many reader friends, and couldn’t wait to get my hands on his new book releasing July 23rd!! 🕶️

And I enjoyed it! You need to go in without comparing Look Closer to The Best Lies or expecting a similar novel, though. The Best Lies was definitely more of a mob crime and intricate scheme book than the thriller that was Look Closer. With that being said, I enjoyed them both. I was definitely invested in the main characters, and would definitely read more books in a Leo Balanoff series! 💙

I saw someone call this a “smart thriller” and love that characterization. This is definitely a complex plot that needs more attention than your average thriller that you throw into your beach bag. There were some subtle twists and turns that might not make sense if you’re not paying attention. 🧠

Get your lib holds in and preorders ready, The Best Lies releases 7/23! 📕

Thank you to NetGalley, David Ellis, and PENGUIN GROUP Putnam for an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review! ✨

I really enjoyed the previous book LOOK CLOSER and was really excited for this one. Leo Balanoff I'd an attorney and a diagnosed pathological liar. A Drug dealer is found dead and his fingerprints are on the murder weapon. The FBI wants his help, but can they really believe him? And do they really have a choice? Leo is caught in the middle…between the FBI and a cruel mob boss.

There's plenty of twists to keep you turning the pages in this one. The beginning pulled me in and I was hooked. Halfway through, It felt like it lost steam but then picked up again. I loved how well written this one was, and the characters were well developed. I loved how it all played out in the end too. Looking forward to more by David Ellis.

Thank you to the publisher and netgalley for the gifted copy in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.